HTTP Error 401.1 Accessing SharePoint from server
If you receive the following error message when you attempt to access your SharePoint site from the server itself,
"HTTP 401.1 – Unauthorized: Access is denied due to invalid credentials”
your environment most likely had Microsoft Security Update 957097 (MS08-068) installed.
You can refer to the KB article 896861 to resolve the issue. It is highly recommended you pick method 1 over method 2 when making this change in a production environment.
SharePoint 2007 Flaw with Profile Imports and My Sites
Wow! What an interesting morning. I arrived at work today to discover that all our “My Site” profile information (and related information) has been deleted from our environment.
I figured out what happened and thought I would share my findings with the community (I’ll most likely be opening a support case with Microsoft to try get this resolved).
Situation
Our environment performed an incremental profile import at 11pm last night. However, at the time the import process began the domain controller we have specified in our profile import connections setting was unavailable.
At this point, SharePoint flagged all the profile accounts in the database to be deleted. I verified this by looking at the bDeleted column in the dbo.UserProfile view in the Shared Services Provider database – all the values were set to “1”.
Then at 12:00 am (midnight) the My Site Cleanup Job timer job ran. According to Microsoft TechNet’s SharePoint Timer job reference (Office SharePoint Server) page, it states the purpose of My Site Cleanup Job is:
“When a user is deleted, starts a workflow on that user’s My Site. The default behavior is to send an e-mail message to the manager with a link to the deleted user’s site. The e-mail message contains a request to the manager to move any documents or data that the manager wants to preserve, because the site might be deleted in the future.”
Please note that this job runs Hourly.
What this page fails to mention is it also wipes out all profile specific data. Not only does it wipe out all profile data (stuff not imported from AD); it also deletes any user Quick Links, Colleague Tracker, Profile Picture, etc.
At least the users documents, etc are safe – but what a pain!
In the ULS, I was seeing the following error message:
“Domain {0} cannot be found.”
Followed by:
“MySiteCleanup: Unable to change owner of MySite for user profile because the new owner was not specified.”
Conclusion
It seems to be a major flaw with this process if SharePoint flags everyone to be deleted simply because the domain controller used for the profile imports is unavailable (for whatever the reason is).
Now domain controllers are rarely unavailable but you should at least be aware of this flaw and plan accordingly.
I am just thankful I did not have the “Site use confirmation and deletion” options enable to automatically delete dead webs. Would have completely ruined my day.
By the way, this environment is running version 12.0.0.6504 (which is the Approval 2009 Cumulative Update).
Muhimbi MuSH – URL Shortener for SharePoint
I’d like to take a moment to congratulate the Muhimbi for shipping MuSH; their version of the URL shortener for SharePoint. As many of you know I have been working on and off on my open sourced version for sometime now and it is good to finally see someone else attempting to tackle the same problem I was attempting to solve (see http://paulliebrand.com/2008/09/08/tinyurl-like-feature-for-sharepoint/).
I had an opportunity to test MuSH recently and for the most part it fundamentally works the same way my version works. The installation process of MuSH was pretty straightforward; it is delivered as a SharePoint WSP solution that gets deployed to your farm.
To create a shortened URL, you navigate to a document library, find the item you want to shorten, click the drop-down and select Shorten URL. This process ultimately shortens the URL and you get an opportunity to copy the URL to the clipboard.
The major difference between Muhimbi’s version and mine is that their shortens the URL to the SharePoint list item itself not the document. Now of course the challenge here is that on some occasions you want it to link to the list item itself and sometimes you may want to link it DIRECTLY to the document itself. To me, the linking directly to a document is more important than linking to the SharePoint list items (in my environment / experience anyway).
I provided this feedback to the Muhimbi team and they are considering adding it to a future version of the product.
For those of you that can no longer wait for my version, you can pick up a copy of MuSH for $199.00.
With all this said and done, I really hope Microsoft considers adding a URL shortener directly into SharePoint 2010 – this is definitely one of those things I hear people complain the most about and (until now) nobody has solved yet.
In the coming weeks I’ll be picking up the development effort on my version of a URL Shortener for SharePoint; this other large project I am working on is coming to a close.
“TinyUrl” Like Feature for SharePoint
I am still planning on releasing an open sourced version of the “TinyUrl" Feature for SharePoint later this year. However, until then you can also keep your eye on MuSH, a URL shorter by Muhimbi. It is current priced at $199.00 and is in a closed beta – of which I am trying to get signed up for.
Muhimbi is looking for some beta testers for the product – if you interested, I would hit them up on Twitter at @Muhimbi.
Disabling My SharePoint Sites propagation or adjusting the frequency
I have previously explained how “My SharePoint Sites” works and how it gets propagated to the client. What happens if you want to disable this feature or adjust the frequency of when it occurs.
From time to time I get asked this question so I figured I would write up a post about it.
By default, Office creates two registry values under “HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Policies\Microsoft\Office\12.0\Common\Portal”, which are:
| Registry Value | Description |
| LinkPublishingTimestamp | A binary timestamp of the last time the sites were propagated to the client |
| PersonalSiteURL | The URL to the users My Site |
There are two additional values you can create manually in the users registry or via a GPO.
| Registry Value | Value | Description |
| LinkPublishingDisabled | 0 = false, 1 = true (DWORD) | Disables the My SharePoint Site (or Link Publishing) on the Client PC. |
| LinkPublishingFrequency | DWORD value in minutes* | Changes the frequency from the default 24 hour to whatever value you put in there. |
* Microsoft claims this is in minutes, however, when I did testing with this it appeared to be in seconds.
Hopefully this will help you gain more control over the My SharePoint Sites / Link Publishing feature of SharePoint and Office.
Zune Marketplace / Zune Pass Frustration!!!
I love my Zune and generally enjoy my experience with the Zune Marketplace. However, every now and then something strange happens with some of my music and it suddenly stops working (DRM related issues).
Upon investigating the issue I noticed that certain tracks on the album are pulled out of Zune Pass and can only be purchased directly (as shown below):
What gives??? This makes absolutely NO sense. Anyone have any thoughts on this?
Windows SharePoint Services 3.0 SP2 and Microsoft Office SharePoint Server 2007 SP2
It is recommended your read KB Article 953338 before installing SP2.
Here are the links to the Service Packs!
WSS 3.0 SP2 : http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?FamilyId=79BADA82-C13F-44C1-BDC1-D0447337051B&displaylang=en
MOSS 2007 SP2 : http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?FamilyId=B7816D90-5FC6-4347-89B0-A80DEB27A082&displaylang=en
Enjoy!
“TinyUrl” for SharePoint Feature Requests
I am soliciting feature requests on Twitter for the first version of the “TinyUrl” for SharePoint feature I’ll am developing.
If you do not want to post them to Twitter, feel free to post them in the comments of this post.
I decided to join the Twitter experience… feel free to follow me at http://twitter.com/PaulLiebrand.
SharePoint / Office 2007 and random authentication pop up’s with “My SharePoint Sites” (Memberships)
Update – 7/2/2009
The Office 2007 hotfix (KB970950) is now available to download:
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/970950
The specific bullet that resolves this problem states the following:
“When you view folders that are listed under My SharePoint Sites in the Open dialog box or the Save As dialog box in a 2007 Office application, you are prompted for authentication. This problem occurs when an expired site is removed from the list and you no longer have access to the site.”
Update – 6/11/2009
I have been using a private build of the hot fix to resolve this issue and it looks like it is finally resolved. I’ll report back as soon as I get word from Microsoft of the official release of this fix.
Update – 5/14/2009
I just got confirmation from Microsoft today that they are currently testing the hot fix and are still scheduling to have it available at the end of June.
Update – 4/21/2009
Microsoft is currently working on a hot fix for this. They are shooting for the Office 2007 June Cumulative Update. I’ll let you know if they make it.
Update – 2/6/2009
I have been working with Microsoft on this issue and it looks like we may be seeing a hot fix (of some sort) to resolve this issue in the future.
I have posted a number of articles on how the SharePoint membership and “My SharePoint Sites” feature works in MOSS 2007 and Office 2007 and some of the problems with it.
http://liebrand.wordpress.com/2007/11/29/moss-2007-and-user-memberships/
http://liebrand.wordpress.com/2007/11/29/office-2007-and-my-sharepoint-sites/
http://liebrand.wordpress.com/2008/02/27/my-sharepoint-sites-and-authentication-popup/
I am currently in the process of working with Microsoft to resolve the specific issues around the pop up box appearing randomly as users are working within Office 2007.
There is another scenario that can cause the random authentication pop ups to occur. Consider the following:
- A new site is created and the three (3) default groups Visitors, Members and Owners are associated.
- The members group (which drives the MOSS 2007 membership feature – see previous posts on this topic) is then removed from the Site Permissions.
- The group still exists but just does not have access to this site.
- The members group is still associated with this SharePoint site as the designated members group.
- SharePoint still propagates this site to the Office 2007 client for all users who are part of that group
As this group is propagated to the Office 2007 client’s “My SharePoint Site” feature it will check the users permission to the site and throw up the authentication pop up box because they technically do not have access.
After you remove any group that has been associated as the members group for a site, make sure you go into the “Set up Groups” from the People and Groups screen and change the Members site association to a new group that does have permissions.
In my opinion, the SharePoint membership feature should be smart enough to determine if the associated members group has access to the site or not and act accordingly. Unfortunately it does not – it just assumes it does and continues to propagate.
Most Recent KBs for SharePoint Server 2007- Description of the Microsoft Office SharePoint Server 2007 hotfix package (Coreservermui-en-us.msp): June 30, 2009
- Description of the SharePoint Server 2007 Cumulative Update Server Hotfix Package (Dlc.msp): June 30, 2009
- Description of the SharePoint Server 2007 hotfix package (Lpsrvmui-en-us.msp): June 30, 2009
- Description of the SharePoint Server 2007 Cumulative Update Server Hotfix Package (Coreserver.msp): June 30, 2009
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